USA TODAY Review

‘Lost Prince’ is a royal disappointment

One of the neatest tricks in literature is writing a successful second novel, especially when the first was a hit with critics and the public. For every novelist who managed to avoid the sophomore slump (Jane Austen with Pride and Prejudice, Charles Dickens with Oliver Twist), many more were ensnared by it, including some — think Ralph Ellison and Harper Lee — who never managed to publish another novel in their lifetimes.

The dynamics of the syndrome are magnified in the case of Selden Edwards, who spent 30 years writing his charming first novel, The Little Book. It's a literary time-travel yarn set in late 19th-century Vienna that became an unexpected best seller in 2008, partly on the strength of the author's clever weaving of some of that era's leading intellectuals — including Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler and William James — into a brainy, romantic costume drama.

Now 71, Edwards has followed The Little Book with a disappointing sequel, The Lost Prince. It follows the former Weezie Putnam, who, after having met and lost the love of her life in the previous book, now finds herself back home in Boston as Mrs. Eleanor Burden, where she settles into her pursuit of the destiny laid out in a secret journal that foretells many of the major events of the 20th century.

Although subject to the occasional doubt about the wisdom of this path, Eleanor sets about her business — which involves a series of well-timed investments, the proceeds from which she uses to popularize the work of Freud and Mahler in America — with steely determination.

As in The Little Book, this is high-concept stuff, intended to appeal to readers for whom time travel and foreknowledge of the future are bound to fascinate in whatever context they might appear. Certainly Edwards is deeply in love with his idea, which is reinforced with a heavy hand every few pages.

"At one moment, she seemed a puppet, being pulled this way and that by fate and expectations, and the next she seemed to be acting on her own initiative, living by her wits, the mistress of her own drama," the narrator muses in a typical passage. "Was it all predetermined, some massive fate controlling all the details, or did she bear the heavy responsibility of causing events, or having to save the day?"

The answer is irrelevant, because either way, things always turn out as they're supposed to. And that's the main problem with The Lost Prince: a nearly complete lack of suspense and surprise.

Unlike The Little Book, in which the outcome of the time-traveling Wheeler Burden's adventures in Vienna is never certain until the end, The Lost Prince is about a protagonist whose fate is never remotely in doubt. Unlike Eleanor herself, the reader knows that events will unfold as described in the journal, one way or another. Some may experience this absence of dramatic tension as pleasantly relaxing, but more will likely have trouble keeping the pages turning.

Reader Reviews - From Goodreads

Showing 1-5

Comments

Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "X" button in the top right corner of each comment to report abuse. Read more